Bionic Brains Are Coming – Electronic Memory Cell That Retains And Processes Information Simultaneously Developed

A tiny memory cell that can store as well as process information simultaneously has been developed. If you feel the technology is eerily similar to an actual human brain, you aren’t wrong.

One of the first and most critical steps towards development of bionic or artificial brains has been successfully completed. Scientists have built a tiny, long-term memory cell that can store and process information at the same time, just like our human brain.

If that isn’t a scary thought, the new cell is 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, making it immensely more versatile. With such a tiny form factor, scientists can stack millions of these memory cells to store and process data at rates that have been simply unimaginable till now. The developers are excited about the unfathomable “memristive” abilities of the memory cell.

In simpler terms, these new memory cells can not just retain and remember previously received data, but can even be “influenced” by the same. Perhaps it might not be wise to aggravate the electronic devices that will eventually sport these memory cells, shared project leader Sharath Sriram, from RMIT University in Australia,

“This is the closest we have come to creating a brain-like system with memory that learns and stores analog information and is quick at retrieving this stored information. The human brain is an extremely complex analog computer… its evolution is based on its previous experiences, and up until now this functionality has not been able to be adequately reproduced with digital technology.”

Memory cells currently used merely have an “On-Off” mechanism. These devices are akin to flash drives which only take in information, one binary digit (either a 0 or a 1) at a time. The new cells on the other hand are “adaptive,” capable of “learning,” paving the way for self-aware, intelligent autonomous machines that can one day sync with their humans, remembering their patterns and movements.

All this essentially means these memory cells could one day give birth to an artificial system that mimics the extraordinary abilities of the human brain. But it doesn’t stop there. These devices would be extremely fast at retention and retrieval of information would require minimal energy input and would have a memory that isn’t ravaged by time.

Scientists assure that these memory cells would allow researchers to create and study diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s outside of the body. However, it isn’t difficult to envision robots that are way smarter and faster than us humans roaming the streets in the near future.

[Image Credit | Datanami]